Documents: Work continued on Super Bowl temporary seats at Cowboys Stadium on game day

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David Woo/Staff Photographer

From left: Arlington Fire Chief Don Crowson, Ed Dryer, Deputy City Manager Trey Yelverton and Mayor Robert Cluck answer questions Friday morning at a news conference where the city released documents related to the installation of temporary seats for Super Bowl XLV at Cowboys Stadium.

The unsuccessful last-minute scramble to avoid a seating fiasco at Super Bowl XLV capped months of instructions and warnings to the Dallas Cowboys by Arlington city officials about permit requirements and flawed plans, according to documents released Friday.

The documents provided a timeline of the city’s handling of temporary seating as it evolved from vague plans five months ago to a crisis in the hours leading up to kick off.

City officials started requesting Super Bowl seating plans as early as Sept. 8 but didn’t receive a permit application to add the 13,000 seats until early January. Within a day, Arlington officials had found dozens of problems, and weeks of work to correct those shortcomings ultimately failed.

About 1,250 temporary seats were deemed unsafe; 400 fans were left without seats; and most temporary seating failed to meet all city codes even if it wasn’t labeled unsafe.

“Our team was working with the league and the stadium as long as we could, up until the day of the event [Super Bowl],” said Trey Yelverton, a deputy Arlington city manager. “And then at the point where certain things could not be signed off on, that’s when we closed off sections of seats.”

The city of Arlington e-mails and memos released at the request of several media outlets this week showed a growing frustration at the slow pace of progress on the seats.

Officials with the National Football League, Dallas Cowboys and Seating Solutions, the seating contractor, either declined to comment or did not return messages late Friday.

Scott Suprina, an official with New-York based Seating Solutions, previously told WFAA-TV (Channel 8) access to the stadium was hampered because of snow, ice and cold weather, and that caused him to fall behind.

City officials began requesting seating plans early and emphasized that permits would be needed, according to e-mails.

“We wanted as much advance notice of what the work encompassed so that we would have time to review, do a thorough review, and respond,” said Ed Dryden, Arlington chief building inspector.

Dryden was told in a September meeting that the Cowboys would be responsible for the planned temporary seats. The installation of temporary seats at Cowboys Stadium wasn’t new but the permitting process was.

The Cowboys previously hired Seating Solutions to install temporary stands for the NBA All Star game and the first Manny Pacquiao fight at the stadium. Because they were low-rise, field level stands, those seats didn’t require building permits.

City officials prodded Cowboys Stadium general manager Jack Hill for several months about filing a permit for the additional seating. That finally happened Jan. 5, but a week later, Dryden was informed of several concerns. Among them:

Structural columns appeared to interrupt some aisle stairs.

Some sets of plans did not have an engineer’s seal or signature.

Guardrails were not shown for stair landing.

Handrails were not shown in some areas.

Required headroom clearances were not shown.

Information for stairways into and out of the seating areas was missing.

Dryden wrote in an e-mail to Hill that Seating Solutions appeared to be cooperating, but time was tight.

“However, the day of the event is 16 days away and some of these issues are significant and from our perspective there’s not a great deal of progress that we can see,” Dryden wrote. “I want to make sure that there is a clear understanding of the City’s expectations – that all of these items be corrected prior to the day of the event.”

In response Suprina Kenney, who works for Seating Solutions, wrote: “We are aware of your concerns and we are moving full steam ahead to satisfy them.”

Arlington Fire Chief Don Crowson raised his own concerns in an e-mail to Hill on Jan. 27. He said that fire officials wanted proof that an engineer had signed off on the plans within two days.

City officials continued to worry despite assurances from the Cowboys and Seatings Solutions that the work could be completed.

Yelverton said he spoke to league officials about this on the Wednesday or Thursday before the game.

“We needed to make sure they knew that they were running up against deadlines and they needed to bring additional resources in to adequately meet the seating requirements,” Yelverton said.

Dryden cleared the use of some temporary seats on the east side of the upper concourse on Feb. 4, the Friday before Super Bowl Sunday. He also approved a section on west side of the concourse with a couple of exceptions.

Meanwhile, Crowson told Hill that he needed to assign firefighters to temporary seating sections for the safety of the people watching the game from those spots. He said it would cost Hill an extra $8,300.

The day before the game, Assistant Fire Chief Jim Self said in an e-mail to Battalion Chief David Carroll that no one showed up to work on the seats the previous night. Dryden e-mailed Hill and said he was clearing another section of temporary seats. Dryden told Arlington community development and planning director Jim Parajon that the clearance was “the first success of the day.”

By Saturday night, his e-mails did not seem optimistic.

“Just to give you an update, there’s no update,” Dryden wrote at 8:26 p.m. “I have a feeling that we’ll see the sun come up!”

He said during Friday’s press conference that he was at the stadium all night as efforts continued to get as many seats ready as possible.

He said those new workers never seemed to arrive.

By 12:35 p.m. on game day, Self sent an e-mail saying that an entire section could be unusable and mentioned contingency plans.

“Maybe 1300 lost seats due to incomplete construction,” Self wrote. “Working on it now… Contractor did walk, but Manhattan [Construction] taking over. If we relocate we may move to Party Plaza, North Club or elsewhere.”

That was about five hours before kick off, and those seats couldn’t be salvaged.

Arlington Mayor Robert Cluck said city officials worked for years on Super Bowl public safety, including building inspections. He said Arlington couldn’t have done anything else.

“I’m not going to assess blame,” Cluck said. “I will tell you there’s enough blame to go around for most people. Obviously, I believe the operator [Seating Solutions] should have pulled in more resources…to finish the seats that he had agreed upon.”

jmosier@dallasnews.com; bformby@dallasnews.com

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